Of Twylla and Charybdis
by A Mistake
Summary: In which Susan Sto-Helit finds out that death may or may not be what it seems and that there is a Crisis at hand since Cookies are missing. Teatime is still more trouble than he's worth, even incorporeal. Slight crack, I think.


**Author's Note: **Title is a lame pun. This is... alright, I have no excuses against what this is. It's crack, obviously, because even if one is to try reading through _Hogfather_ squinting, there really isn't anything going on between Susan and Teatime. The _movie_, however, is a different case, and I haven't even watched it completely before I could already say that there's some tension in the air. Besides, the dynamic between them as a pairing is entertaining. So, without further ado (and further excuses), I present you a random, one-shot (because this was the only idea I have) of SusanxTeatime.

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><p><strong>Cookies and Another Goodbye<strong>

It was a good thing that the house was currently empty.

She was first alerted of his presence when she couldn't find the cookie jar in the usual place. It wasn't anywhere Gawain or Twylla usually relocated it to either and it could only be the _other_ person. This was starting to be a new annoying routine in her life.

_Damn poltergeist_.

Susan turned around and saw the blurred form of the person she had expected to see all along; the assassin with the pinhole eye. she could feel all the fine hairs bristling along her spine, at the back of her neck and up her arms—all because he slipped into one of his _charming_ smile. It was quite cutting, really; she could feel the ghost of a blade hovering close even when he was at the other side of the room with the cookie jar. That man radiated violence even when he's leaving a trail of crumbs, his hair all golden curly innocence.

Nevermind that he's dead. He looks too smug for a dead man.

So Susan got angry. She used the fire running through her head to move on her feet fast and dodge before she even knew what she was dodging. She rolled away and snatch the poker before she even saw him attacking, without thinking. Channeling anger fueled her reactions and run her senses until she felt _beyond_ alive; She was so annoyed she was coming from the other side of violently happy.

"Why so angry, Susan?" That annoying sing-song tenor voice grated her nerves.

"You're leaving crumbs everywhere, you _prat_"

A hand grasped at her throat; she didn't know when he moved there or how, and she didn't care about the details. Susan rotated her arm to his direction and the poker cutting harshly through half-solid air. It was a hit, she knew that because she was starting to memorize that momentary blink of his presence happening right before he disappeared again. Confident that The Poker was as strong as ever, she stalked around the room all wary, waiting for him to show hide or hair. When he didn't, she kicked a chair; she rattled a plate. She made quite a ruckus in the unfortunately empty house that she _almost_ didn't notice him drift in. _Almost_. He had a grip on her shoulder and she knew he thought he could win.

And then it wasn't the poker that was in her hand anymore but Death's sword and she had nicked him in the neck as she pulled herself away; her weapon drawn and the assassin now placed at sword point. It was inside her robes all this time as she waited for the perfect opportunity to use it. Now she wondered, can ghosts still bleed? Does it matter to them? Do ghosts that eat cookies bleed?

_Does Teatime bleed?_

"Why are you still here, _Tea_time?" her voice came harsh through gritted teeth,

"Teatime, Susan—" His fingers were idly playing on the edge of Death's sword. She lifted the blade higher, closer to his neck, but he didn't act like it mattered.

"I'll use it properly when your visiting habits are like other decent people" she said,

"But would you even give me a cookie if I asked politely for it? Even a glimpse of my presence had always set you off in many wonderfully murderous ways that I can't help but try stealth, can't I? You always bake the most scrumptious of cookies" Teatime said with a smile as bright as sunshine falling through a thousand stained-glass shards.

He said it with the same cheerful tone he used when complimenting her on the concussive technique she used against a particularly stubborn bogeyman, helpfully adding that of course, he still preferred naked blades best. The bogeyman decided that a change of career was in demand the next day. Of course, there was _that dratted smile_ he had that gave her skin the impression that ice-legged spiders were crawling on them.

"There, I've been polite to the host, haven't I? Can't you at least pronounce my name properly, _Susan?_"

Her goosebumps were having goosebumps.

"Would you go away if you get a bag of cookies?" she finally asked without even lowering her sword by a bit. Her mind was refusing to note the little fact that he _had_ been polite as real. He moved a little to the left and she followed close with her sword.

"I might be persuaded to"

"_Forever_?"

"Forever's such a long time" he said with a sigh, before suddenly perking up again, "I came especially to say goodbye, Susan"

Susan could not help but kept a lookout for knives that might suddenly flew her way. She just _knew_ he had some; it was that certain sharpness that increased in the air whenever he's around. Teatime took one step to the right instead and the blade cutting his neck ended up sinking deeper.

Her eyes widened. He took a step forward—and another, and another, slicing the skin against the blade as he moved forward. After a final step, she was the one who winced more than he did. He merely closed his eyes and blinked it away at times when she could almost _hear_ the soft_ shlip_ of the blade against immaterial flesh.

The fact that his blood looks silverish now doesn't do a _thing_ to the way her stomach churned when she saw them staining his collar.

"What are you doing?" she asked. She was tempted to say 'are you crazy?' before she realized he'd just say 'yes' and shut her mouth.

"Saying goodbye. You won't trust me to come any closer otherwise, would you?" He said.

She was still too stunned to move as he took another step, only a foot away from her now. Why could she still smell the faint tang of iron if he's already dead and that blood isn't exactly blood? He tilted his head away slightly from the sword and his left hand casually applied some pressure on his neck—She surprised herself by not sticking the sword back against his throat.

It was just...

It was just the blood, she reasoned. She was too distracted by the blood. No matter that it was silver, she still _hated_ it. Hated seeing it gush and flow and drip ectoplasm all over the nice carpet of the Gaiters' living room. Now she could see it on his hands as Teatime stopped pressing against his neck; now it was smeared on her cheeks as his fingers touched her skin.

Now she could taste its subdued tones, the faintest hint of rust, as he pressed his lips to hers.

_Wait...what?_

His other hand pulled her waist closer, vanishing the distance between them and the next thing she noticed was how she had a wall behind her now. For that moment, Susan stopped thinking of ghosts, of incorporeality, of _someone dead is not supposed to be this real and solid and warm and—_

...and wonderfully dizzying apart from tasting like milk and cookies and that vague tinge of phantasmal blood. _He tastes like the death of innocence_, she thought with a strange realization. Teatime used that one moment when her thoughts wandered to tip her into a deeper kiss and she sunk her nails into his shoulder because she didn't want to drown. _Stop it_, she thought, _I don't believe you could even care_.

Yet every savouring caress of his hands seems to say exactly that. _I won't ever leave and you know it_. And _I'll haunt you forever if it was up to me_.

Teatime stepped back just before she regained enough sense to slap him. His expression might have been sadness on any other people's face, but it was just plain confused on his. He was probably trying to sort out whether all this unease he was feeling was a new sort of constipation one can only have when one's dead.

"I don't yet know how I'll do it, but I'll be back before you know it" he said, and leaned forward again with a confidence that annoyed her. Susan was cross enough to put the poker between them. The dead assassin carelessly held it in his hand, pushing it aside even as his insubstantial flesh hissed in contact with it. She couldn't help but stare when the skin of his left hand seems to have bubbled, and she blamed it on morbid curiosity. He dropped the poker on the floor none too soon and reached out to kiss her again—this time giving her plenty of time to avoid him.

_I should really pick that poker up and whack him with it_. She thought, though her body did none of that. She thought she really ought to move away and didn't.

She really, _really_ ought to know better than to part her lips, but she did it anyway.

The taste of that distant blood seemed stronger now, and she didn't know what to think. It wasn't significant compared to the way he made her heartbeat jump, her fingers trembling and numb from the sheer amount of want and loneliness that he poured into her. She couldn't help but fight back and pull him closer by his too-perfect hair to contradict him; her hand that was on his backside was as scandalously low as the one he placed on her bodice. She wanted to shove her opinion down his throat and she did exactly that, showing him that loneliness wasn't the only thing that could taste deliciously bittersweet. Anger was another one. Frustration. _And since when did I end up against a wall?_ He pulled away first and pressed his left hand against his neck again, his eyes wide in surprise. He curiously touched his own lips. The silvery liquid was still trickling at a slow but steady rate from the sword wound.

"That was really foolish of you" Susan snapped. She kept her eyes back at his neck instead of the curious flush over his cheekbones. The growing headache in her head was starting to be hard to ignore. He was an assassin, yes, crazy, yes, probably safer for the world when _dead_, yes... She swung the poker once out of instinct and Teatime moved away from it as natural as breathing. She _really_ should focus better in making him stay deader than he currently is and not get distracted. _Bad Susan_, she thought to herself. _Very bad Susan..._

He shrugged, still talking in the same conversational tone. "I really don't think people could die twice. It doesn't make any sense, so there's nothing that you need to worry about, really"

Susan made another series of vicious swings at him, with Teatime not seeing any contradiction in what he just said and what Susan was trying to do. His left arm was grazed now, as his last dodge wasn't quite perfect. But he stood like it barely affected him and he never stayed farther than three feet from her, lingering on like a bad memory. Susan tried to ignore the discomfort that came with that uncanny gaze of his and failed. "Just wait, Susan"

"Like I'd put my hopes on it" she cut in, sour enough to make a lemon wilt.

"Oh, but you would" he replied just as easily, somehow finding a reason to give her that razor-sharp smile of his again. "See you later, _Susan_"

The way he said her name made her want to skewer his skull with the poker, but he was moving faster than she could follow and into one of the walls. Susan sighed and slumped on one of the chairs.

"How on earth does one get ectoplasmic blood out of the carpet?" She asked aloud.

_How on the Disc do I scrub his presence from my brain?_

When she got back to the kitchen, Susan noticed that the new batch of cookies she had already placed in a jar was missing.

There was only a scrap of replacement paper in its place, bearing a hastily scrawled _Thanks for all the cookies_.

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><p><strong>Author's End Note<strong>: As always, reviews are very much welcome! Oh, and other crack-like ideas. They might trigger a series of plot bunnies later on, so who knows?


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